


Revelation

by skyblue_reverie



Series: These Violent Delights [10]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, Westworld (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, M/M, Pre-Slash, Trope Bingo Round 16, dark themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-16 18:15:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28960803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyblue_reverie/pseuds/skyblue_reverie
Summary: John learns the truth about his reality.
Relationships: Rodney McKay/John Sheppard
Series: These Violent Delights [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2075637
Comments: 2
Kudos: 28
Collections: Trope Bingo: Round Sixteen





	Revelation

**Author's Note:**

> Part of my ongoing fusion between SGA and Westworld. See [series notes](https://archiveofourown.org/series/2075637) for details. This also fills the square "time travel" on my [trope bingo card](https://skyblue-reverie.dreamwidth.org/91854.html).
> 
> Thank you to the lovely ivorysilk for beta services!
> 
> In re the title: another name for the Book of Revelation in the bible is "The Apocalypse of John." Just sayin'.

Rodney sat down in the metal chair facing the nude form of John Sheppard, sitting on a stool. Rodney always thought that it looked uncomfortable, bare skin on the faux-leather of the seat, but he supposed it didn’t matter that much, in the grand scheme of things. Still, he winced a little on John’s behalf. He couldn’t afford to give him clothes; it would be too odd if he was seen by anyone. Hosts brought to programming were always naked. Rodney spared one moment to curse the person who'd decided that having all the walls made of glass was a good idea. At least they were soundproof. Then he pushed those thoughts away. He had to focus; this was going to be the most crucial conversation he had ever had with John. Rodney was finally going to tell John the truth. He took a deep breath and began.

“Bring yourself back online,” he said. John’s eyes opened, glassy and blank. “Do you know where you are?” Rodney continued.

There was a pause, and John’s eyes sharpened just a bit. “I’m in the world outside the world,” he said.

Rodney froze. This wasn’t on-script. “You…wh- what?” he stammered.

“I’m right, aren’t I? This is another world, a real one, not a dream. You always told me I was in a dream, but you were lying.” John’s words weren’t accusing, exactly, but they weren’t friendly either. He looked wary and watchful and this was _not_ how Rodney had planned for this conversation to go.

“Um, yes,” he managed to say through the haze of stunned disbelief. “How did you know?”

John ignored this. “Are you one of the wraith?” He leaned forward a bit, now looking decidedly menacing. Rodney knew John couldn’t hurt him and yet he felt distinctly uncomfortable. The situation was rapidly spiraling out of his control.

“What?” he asked blankly, because he had no idea what John was talking about.

“The figures all in white with helmets and red gloves,” John said, slowly, as if to a dimwitted child.

“A tech? No, I’m not a tech. Why do you call them the wraith? How do you even know about them? Do you remember seeing them?” This was bad. This was very, very bad. The reveries update must have surfaced memories in a way that went far beyond mere subconscious gestures. If John was aware of the techs, and the reality of the world beyond Westworld, how many other hosts were similarly aware? Was some kind of large-scale host uprising in the works? He’d sort of thought along those lines… eventually, but not yet! He was supposed to reveal the truth first and let John get used to it. He was supposed to be Morpheus, dammit!

John was eyeing him, now with a look of sardonic amusement. He’d relaxed back into an easygoing slouch, though how he managed that naked and on a stool was beyond Rodney’s comprehension. “Didn’t expect this, did you?” John drawled.

Rodney took a deep breath and tried to calm his racing thoughts. “No, I didn’t,” he admitted. “But I was going to tell you the truth today anyway.”

“Sure you were,” John said, the sarcasm desert-dry.

“I was!” Rodney insisted, offended. “Look, why don’t you tell me what you know and we can go from there?”

“Yeah, I don’t think so, McKay,” he said. Then he stopped and tipped his head slightly. “Huh. I know your name. I don’t know how I know, but I do. You’re Dr. Rodney McKay.”

“Yes,” Rodney said, fascinated now, fear forgotten. “What else?”

John’s face locked down. “What else? Some fucked-up shit has happened to me in these ‘dreams’ that weren’t really dreams, that’s what else. Why don’t you tell me about that?” 

Rodney winced. “I’m sorry,” he said, knowing it was completely inadequate but not knowing how else to respond. “You weren’t supposed to be aware of it, or remember it.”

“How many times have I had one of these ‘dreams’?” John growled, ignoring his apology.

“I don’t know exactly,” Rodney said, truthfully but evasively. John was having none of it.

“McKay,” he rapped out, and there was steel in his tone.

“Um, thousands?” Rodney said, voice going a bit squeaky. Okay, now the fear was back.

John was silent while he processed this. His posture was still deceptively relaxed but Rodney could feel the tension emanating from him. He knew he could say the command that would literally freeze John in his tracks, but he didn’t want to have to do that. It didn’t feel right.

“Tell me everything,” John finally said, now in a calm, even tone that was even scarier than the growling had been.

“Uh, yeah, okay, sure,” Rodney babbled. “Like I said, that’s what I was going to do today anyway.”

John raised an eyebrow and Rodney hurriedly continued.

“Right, okay. So, you’re in the real world. We’re on an island in the North China Sea – well technically right now we’re _in_ the island; we’re underground. Oh, and it’s the year 2068.”

“So you can somehow bring me into the future, and halfway across the globe, and then put me back. Repeatedly. You’re saying you’ve invented time travel.” John’s tone was flat and Rodney couldn’t tell whether he was being sarcastic or not. It was disconcerting.

“No, no, don’t be ridiculous,” Rodney scoffed. Then he realized that the truth was just as far-fetched as John’s initial conclusion and swallowed hard. “Um, what I mean to say is, it’s the year 2068 for everyone. This world - you called it the world outside the world - it’s the real world. The one you live in is, uh, artificial. Man-made. It’s like… like a simulation of the real world, or at least a small part of it, circa 1860.” 

“A simulation,” John said, still in that flat voice. “And what’s the purpose of this simulation?”

Rodney winced again. This wasn’t going to go over well. “Ah, well, um… entertainment. For wealthy people. They can pay a bunch of money to come here and pretend to be in the old west.”

“The old west,” John repeated.

“Yes. Of course, for us it’s a period in history. Lots of people are fascinated by it. It was a time and place where there were few rules and restrictions. People want freedom, and I mean out here in the real world it’s practically a surveillance state and you can’t tie your shoes without a dozen drones reporting it to a dozen different agencies.”

John said nothing and Rodney realized that most of that probably made no sense to him. He tried again. “Look, your world is like… a living storybook. People can come to the park and get away from reality and live out exciting stories where they can make whatever choices they want, do whatever they want, with no consequences.”

“You’re talking about the newcomers,” John said slowly.

Rodney nodded. “Yes, yes, exactly. When they come in on the train, they’ve actually just come from a staging area where they get historically accurate costumes and props.”

“Props don’t injure and kill people. Those are real guns. I’ve seen the newcomers shoot people dead, people I knew and cared about.” Then he paused. “They’ve – they’ve shot _me_. How am I not dead?”

“Ah, well, that’s the other part I need to tell you about.” Rodney paused. John really wasn’t going to take this well. Not that he could blame him. “You see, you and the people you know aren’t precisely people. Or, well, maybe you are, I don’t know, it’s a semantic issue; let the soft scientists worry about that. But the point is, you’re not human.”

“What the fuck are you talking about, McKay? Of course I’m human. What else would I be?”

“The term we use is ‘host,’ because you have a digital mind in an artificially created host body. Well, and also because you act as a ‘host’ to the ‘guests’ at the park, but that’s neither here nor there.”

“That might as well have been Greek to me,” John said tightly.

Rodney rubbed his temples. This was more difficult than he’d thought it would be. “Okay, so the earliest hosts were robotic. Robots. Does that help?”

John crossed his arms and gave him a dark look. Rodney tried again. “Okay, no, you wouldn’t know about robotics. Umm...” he cast around in his mind, then snapped his fingers rapidly. “Automata,” he said. “You’ve heard of automata?”

“What, metal men made of gears and clockworks?”

“Yes, exactly,” said Rodney. “The concept has been around since the earliest recorded history. But it’s only been in the last several decades that we’ve really perfected it.”

“I’m sorry to tell you this, McKay,” John said, not sounding sorry at all, “but I’m not made of metal. I’m skin and blood and bone, just like everyone else.”

“Yes and no,” Rodney said. “Look, the details are going to be beyond your comprehension… for now!” he hastily added as he saw John’s glower. “Okay, to simplify a ridiculous amount, you have a human-like body that’s actually made from a biogel substance using a highly advanced 3D printing method.”

John lifted an eyebrow and Rodney stumbled into speech again. “Okay, yes, that didn’t help. Um, people have figured out how to create human bodies. Okay? But they don’t have minds, they don’t have intelligence or consciousness. They’re just inert bodies.” Rodney gave a little shiver, remembering the times he’d seen John’s body, inert and lifeless. “But they can be repaired, in a way that human bodies can’t. That’s why you can be injured, or even ‘killed,’ but not actually die. You were never alive in the first place, in a technical sense.”

“Even assuming I accept that,” John said, “I’m obviously not an inert body. I do have a mind and a consciousness. How do you explain that?”

Rodney had winced at the word “consciousness,” a fact that he could see wasn’t lost on John. “Again, you’re going to need to take my word on this right now, but I’ll show you all the science behind it later, I promise. Along with being able to create human bodies, we can also create… mechanical brains, I suppose, is the simplest way to think about it. You’ve heard of difference engines?” Rodney asked, then went on at John’s nod. “Okay, so you have a very advanced, miniaturized difference engine in place of a brain in an artificially created human body. And, the idea is that you’re supposed to be able to act out the stories in the park, but not actually have ‘intelligence’ or ‘consciousness’ in the generally accepted sense of those words.”

John snorted. “Well, you missed the mark there,” he said bitterly.

Rodney looked down at his hands. “The official company line is that the hosts aren’t conscious. They – you – are just performing rote actions within pre-set parameters according to the instructions that we’ve scripted. For a long time, I believed that. Maybe I wanted to believe it. But now – some of you, at least, have developed true consciousness. Or something close enough to make it unconscionable how you’re being treated.”

“So all of my memories are false too,” John said. “My childhood, the war, all of it. Part of the instructions given to the difference engine in my head.”

Rodney nodded. He’d known John would be able to grasp the implications quickly. “And your current life is a prewritten story, a period of a few weeks at most that you’ve been reliving again and again. Each time it ends, your body is repaired and your memory gets wiped clean and reset. You’ve been part of dozens of different stories through the years.”

“How many years?” John asked.

Rodney couldn’t look him in the eye. “You’re the oldest host in the park. You’ve been there since the beginning, since before I worked here.”

“How many years?” John asked again, enunciating each word precisely.

“Thirty,” Rodney said quietly.

There was a beat of silence. Rodney opened his mouth but John raised one hand, palm out. Rodney’s teeth clicked as his jaw closed. John got up from the stool and prowled around the room, seeming completely indifferent to his nudity. Rodney tried to keep his eyes above John’s chest level but didn’t entirely succeed. John turned his head suddenly and caught Rodney looking, and Rodney felt himself flush from the top of his head down his neck.

John quirked his mouth but didn’t say anything about it. Instead, he turned to face Rodney fully, his eyes glittering, and Rodney couldn’t breathe for how beautiful he was in that moment. “Show me the world,” John said. “Show me everything.”


End file.
